We’ve all learned a whole lot more when it comes to how Android places emergency calls recently when one unfortunate customer discovered the Microsoft Teams app was able to trigger a bug in Android that might break 911. It will take another few weeks for the fix to land in Android itself, but a solution on Microsoft’s end has been deployed. A 911-friendly version of the Microsoft Teams app is now rolling out.
If you’re curious what was wrong with Microsoft Teams in the first place, you can read our summary of the issue, but the simple version is that the app was registering itself as able to place calls too many times if you weren’t signed in, and that was able to trigger a very unlikely bug in the Android system itself when it chooses a service to use for emergency calls. The issue wasn’t just Microsoft’s fault, but a confluence of bugs between Teams and Android itself.
At the time, Teams customers were advised to keep their app either signed in or uninstall and reinstall the app if they weren’t signed in to temporarily reduce the odds it might happen. Thankfully, they won’t have to do that for much longer if they check for app updates soon.
“Microsoft has started to roll out version 1416/1.0.0.2021194504 of the Teams app. This version resolves the issue with the spawning of too many duplicate PhoneAccounts, and it also calls the clearPhoneAccounts method of TelecomManager at first launch to clear all PhoneAccounts it previously created. This means you don’t need to uninstall and reinstall Teams — just update to the new version!”
According to Esper.io senior technical editor Mishaal Rahman, version 1416/1.0.0.2021194504 of the Microsoft Teams app contains a fix for the repeated registration issue and can clear the list of accidentally registered duplicates. This doesn’t solve all the problems that were discovered, but it should significantly reduce the chances that the issue in Android itself will be triggered until that fix can roll out as part of January’s security patches.
The update should be rolling out now on the Play Store, but if you don’t see it there or can’t install it from that source, the requisite version is also available here.
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